


all seem to say (throw cares away)

by elizaham8957



Series: Twelve Days of Stydia Christmas 2018 [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Holidays, engaged stydia, lydia loves him so much, stiles is a dork, the usual really, tree decorating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 19:51:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17008119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaham8957/pseuds/elizaham8957
Summary: “Lydia!” Stiles calls, his voice sounding almost panicked, and her first thought is, oh god, what did he break?“What? Are you okay?” she immediately responds, pulling her head out of the box of Christmas decorations she had been searching. The tree skirt has to be here somewhere; she distinctly remembers putting it in this box last year.“No, I am not,” he responds, but he walks into their living room, expression more peeved than guilty, so she figures he didn’t break anything. She didn’t hear a crash, either, so that’s a good sign.“We’re decorating our Christmas tree, but we don’t have any Christmas music playing?” he demands. “How am I truly supposed to get in the Christmas spirit?”Lydia almost has to laugh at how utterly ridiculous her fiance is.





	all seem to say (throw cares away)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 12 Days number 2! This one was quite fun to write. Will I ever write about Stydia doing anything other than stupid daily life things? Probably not. 
> 
> Title is from Carol of the Bells. I'm stilesssolo on tumblr and twitter if you wanna chat, and I would love to know what you think of this. Enjoy!

“Lydia!” Stiles calls, his voice sounding almost  _ panicked,  _ and her first thought is,  _ oh god, what did he break?  _

“What? Are you okay?” she immediately responds, pulling her head out of the box of Christmas decorations she had been searching. The tree skirt has to be here  _ somewhere;  _ she distinctly remembers putting it in this box last year. 

“No, I am  _ not,”  _ he responds, but he walks into their living room, expression more peeved than guilty, so she figures he didn’t break anything. She didn’t hear a crash, either, so that’s a good sign. 

“We’re decorating our Christmas tree, but we don’t have any  _ Christmas music  _ playing?” he demands. “How am I truly supposed to get in the Christmas spirit?” 

Lydia almost has to laugh at how utterly  _ ridiculous  _ her fiance is. 

“Here,” she says, tossing him her phone. “Put on that Christmas playlist Scott made on Spotify for their party last year. That should give us plenty of music.” 

“Perfect,” Stiles says, catching her phone with a surprising amount of grace. She’d long ago sacrificed her cute Kate Spade phone cases for the less-glamorous Lifeproof cases, once Stiles started handling her phone on the regular. 

“Any requests for a first song?” he asks as he scrolls, and Lydia shakes her head, turning back to the box in front of her and  _ finally  _ finding the tree skirt. 

“I trust your judgement,” she tells him as she tugs it out of the box, pushing the other bins of Christmas decorations and ornaments out of the way so she can get to their newly purchased tree. “Did you already water the tree?”

“Yep,” Stiles says as Jingle Bell Rock starts playing through the bluetooth speaker on their coffee table and Lydia arranges the tree skirt around the base. “Lights are on there too.” 

“You’re the best,” Lydia says, standing up and dropping a quick kiss on his cheek. He grins back at her goofily, snaking one arm around her waist, and she rests her head on his arm, watching him survey their apartment. It’s in an absolute state of  _ chaos—  _ boxes of ornaments and decorations are half-unpacked everywhere, there’s still an inordinate amount of pine needles on the hardwood floors from when they had wrestled the tree inside, and the furniture in the living room was hastily shoved out of the way to make room for the tree. Still, that Christmastime magic is starting to sneak back into the air, so Lydia finds she doesn’t mind the mess in their usually impeccable apartment as much. 

“Ready to decorate?” Stiles asks her, leaning down to meet her eyes, and she nods decisively, sneaking out of his arms and reaching down for the box of ornaments in front of them. 

“Definitely,” she tells him, and he goes for the open box next to hers. “Remember,” she reprimands, standing up with the container of hooks in hand. “Only  _ ten  _ Star Wars ornaments.” 

Lydia has never seen a grown man  _ pout  _ as badly as Stiles does when she puts quotas on his Star Wars decorations. 

“Are you sure?” he double checks, holding a Darth Vader tangled in Christmas lights to his chest. 

“Positive,” she tells him with an assertive nod of her head, and his shoulders sag momentarily, before he bounces back and hangs his Darth Vader on the tree. 

Lydia goes for the fancy blown glass ornaments they got in that upscale Christmas shop in LA last year first, beautiful shades of silver and gold with sparkly snowflakes etched into the glass. Stiles seems to have grabbed the box of sentimental ornaments, singing along to the music as he hangs ornaments from their various trips the past couple years on the tree. There’s one of the Empire State Building, a Mets ornament from when Lydia had gotten him tickets to that game for his birthday years back, one from the Christmas they’d spent in Boston right before Lydia graduated from MIT, a few from their various trips to Disney over the years— and then of course the Star Wars ornaments, artfully spread out amongst the other ornaments. By the time they finish off the two boxes, the tree has the perfect amount of ornaments on it, a delicate balance between sentimental ones and decorative ones. The lights twinkle back merrily, and Stiles loops his arms around Lydia’s waist as they study their handiwork, her head leaning against his chest. 

“It looks pretty good,” he tells her, pressing a brief kiss to her hair, thumbs running up and down her sides. Lydia nods, because she agrees. The tree looks good, elegant while still personalized with all the decorations that mean something to them. That’s one of her favorite things about decorating their Christmas tree— seeing all the memories from years past up on display, and thinking of which new ones will be added for next year. When she was little, her Christmas tree had always been big and elegant and impersonal, shining with white twinkly lights and beautiful glass balls in festive colors. The homemade ornaments she brought home from school went directly into boxes, buried in the attic with the rest of the decorations that didn’t match with their elegant Christmas facade. Looking back on it now, Lydia wonders if her mom thought putting up a picture-perfect tree would convince people they were living a picture-perfect life before the divorce. 

“Okay,” Lydia says, turning in Stiles’s arms to kiss him briefly. He smiles back at her, eyes shining in that way that he saves just for her. “We have to pack up all these boxes and put them away so we can let poor Finn out of the office.” Lydia loves their dog, but despite the fact that he’s almost three, she  _ knows  _ he will wreak havoc on the open boxes full of tissue paper if left to his own devices. 

“On it,” Stiles says, springing into action and beginning to consolidate the now-empty boxes of ornaments. The music switches again right as he stuffs a huge armful of discarded ornament wrappings into one of the empty boxes, and Stiles stands up abruptly at the beginning notes of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s  _ Carol of the Bells.  _ “Oh my god,” he says, dropping the newspaper in the box unceremoniously. “This is like, the best Christmas song  _ ever.”  _

“I think that may be dramatizing a little bit,” Lydia says, biting back a smile and continuing to box up all the decoration packaging. 

“Uh, no, not at all,” Stiles says,  _ completely  _ distracted from decoration clean-up. “Just wait. The beat is about to drop. Does any other Christmas song go as hard as this one does? I think not.” 

“Mmm,” Lydia says, like she’s truly considering it. “What about  _ All I Want for Christmas is You?”  _

“Regular version or  _ extra festive  _ version?” Stiles asks. “I don’t know if it matters. Obviously  _ All I Want for Christmas is You  _ is legendary when it comes to Christmas songs, but does it go off like this one?” As if to demonstrate his point, Stiles begins aggressively playing an air guitar just as the beat drops and the electric guitar comes in in the song. Lydia can’t help but laugh as he dances around their living room, jumping over the coffee table, arms flailing wildly as he pretends he’s giving a rock concert. 

“You clearly should have given up on the FBI and pursued a career in music,” Lydia says as he hops off the coach, still pretending to riff on the imaginary guitar he’s holding. 

“I know, right? What a waste of talent.” 

The music picks up in both volume and intensity, and Stiles grins wide, meeting her eyes briefly. “Grand finale!” he says, his limbs flailing again, and he starts to whip his arm around in circles in a classic air-guitar movement that Lydia does not think any  _ actual  _ guitar players ever utilize. 

She realizes, too late, that he is  _ dangerously  _ close to their newly-decorated Christmas tree. 

“Stiles, be careful—” she says, but her fiance continues moving, outstretched hand swinging backwards almost in slow motion. She reaches out to stop him, but time seems to slow down as his hand connects with the tree, the star on top wobbling precariously as his expression of pure joy fades to horror. 

The tree sways back and forth once, twice, before it gives up and falls over, both Stiles and Lydia frozen in shock. 

Neither of them move for a second, eyes wide as saucers as they stare at the pile of pine needles and glass ornaments now on their floor. It’s once they see the water spreading from the knocked over stand onto their new hardwood floors that Stiles springs into action. 

“Shit!” Stiles hisses, stepping over ornaments that fell off, grabbing the tree by the trunk in the middle and standing it back up. Miraculously, it doesn’t seem like any of the ornaments have broken, but the star on top is crooked, and there are pine needles  _ everywhere.  _ He turns back towards Lydia, eyes wide and expression apologetic. “Oh my god, babe, I am  _ so  _ sorry. I don’t even—” 

She cuts him off with a shake of her head, still a little shell shocked. Still, she’s not necessarily  _ mad.  _ She knows he didn’t mean it, and his meek expression is kind of adorable. Stiles just stands there, looking at her like he’s expecting her to start yelling, one hand halfheartedly clutching the sopping wet tree skirt. And then, before she knows what she’s doing, Lydia starts  _ laughing.  _

Stiles’s expression changes from apologetic to anxious quicker than she can process; the tree skirt still in his hand, he walks over to her, his other hand resting on her shoulder. 

“Lydia,” Stiles says, brows raised. “Uh, babe, are you okay?” 

She stops giggling, biting her lip as she looks up at him. “Yeah,” she tells him, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss him quickly. He still looks  _ adorably  _ confused, hands hanging limply by his side. God, she loves him so much. 

Gently, Lydia takes the tree skirt from his hand, maneuvering through the pine-needle-covered living room to the laundry room. “Go grab some towels, okay?” 

“Okay,” he responds, immediately jumping into action. “Sorry Finn!” he calls down the hallway to the dog. “You’re gonna have to stay in the office a little longer.” Lydia laughs at that again, depositing the soaked tree skirt next to the washer, before grabbing the vacuum for the pine needles. 

“Okay, so,” Stiles says, giving Lydia a perplexed look, holding a headless Darth Vader ornament in his hand. “This ornament needs to be glued back together, so… while we wait for it to be dry, do I get to pick a placeholder Star Wars ornament to put on the tree?” 

Lydia can’t help but smile, nodding at him and laughing at the way he fist pumps triumphantly. “It’s coming down the  _ second  _ the Darth Vader one goes back up,” she tells him, grabbing one of the towels and moving to clean up the water on the floor. 

“Ugh,  _ fine,”  _ Stiles grumbles, picking up some of the other discarded ornaments from the floor. 

“I will  _ maybe  _ consider letting you keep both up,” Lydia tells him. “On one condition.” His eyes go wide as he looks at her, and she can tell from his expression, he will agree to anything she says. 

Not that that’s ever really been an issue before. 

“No more passionate  _ Carol of the Bells  _ sing-a-longs,” Lydia tells him, and Stiles tips his head back, laughing. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and when he smiles, Lydia feels whole. “I think I can make that work.”


End file.
